Sex

My old sex question is really dated — it references the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. Sodomy and fornication laws are no longer enforced. Whether or not prostitution should be legal is relevant, but what do I put in for authoritarian options?

In the comments below, I would really appreciate some ideas here. Should I keep the sex issue at all? Or are their other sex-related issues more pressing than whether or not to legalize prostitution? (Gay marriage is a biggie, but it doesn’t entirely fit in the libertarian-authoritarian axis.)

Anyway, a draft:

SEX INDUSTRY

If you own your body, why can’t you sell it or images thereof? On the other hand, love and marriage are precious and declining. If cracking down the sex industry would save marriages, then wouldn’t this be worth the price? But is the sex industry responsible for the decline of marriage?

To what degree should the sex industry be legal?

None, outlaw pornography AND strip clubs.

Much less, outlaw pornography OR strip clubs.

Less. Make it harder to get pornography, but allow it for determined adults. For example, all dirty images on the Internet should be behind paywalls.

Current law: outlaw and regulate as we do now.

More legal. Keep strip clubs and pornography legal, and legalize prostitution as well.

4 Responses to Sex

For authoritarian options, bring in the idea of public shaming* of those who willingly engage in sexual activity outside a legal, permanent partnership, on the following grounds:

Sexual activity outside such a partnership spreads disease, which the state then has to provide healthcare to combat.
Sexual activity outside such a partnership can result in unwanted pregnancy, which can be a direct ticket to long-term poverty for many women if not aborted. Such children, raised in poverty and without a second parent, are much more likely to become violent and/or dependent on hard drugs, and are much less likely to achieve academically and professionally. If abortion of unwanted pregnancy is an option, it becomes an addition to the healthcare that must be paid for somehow.

*Public shaming can take the form of a publicized list of the names and addresses of known offenders, as is currently done with sexual offenders. It can take the form of a monetary tax, with the money earmarked for the healthcare and education of children conceived outside a legal, long-term partnership. DNA testing can identify the fathers of these children (aborted or otherwise), so that at least those consensual sexual activities that result in pregnancy can be blamed on both partners, not just the woman.

BTW, your information on the abortion options is incorrect. You say that the morning-after pill terminates a pregnancy after conception, when it actually prevents conception and does not interfere with an already-fertilized egg. You should provide an option that correctly explains this and also one that stipulates that such a pill should be made available only to rape victims, incest victims, and women whose health is threatened by pregnancy.

Thank you again. I was thinking RU486 when I wrote morning after pills. Outlawing a pill is much more difficult to enforce than outlawing a clinical procedure. That’s why I broke out pill vs. abortion. But I did use the wrong terminology.

For simplicity’s sake, I have simply taken out the RU486 references (which were incorrectly labeled morning after). I have added an option for outlawing the pill but still having a rape/incest exception. New answer set to post in a few minutes.